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As President George H. W. Bush took office in January 1989, factions within his administration disagreed concerning the approach to take with regard to US-Soviet relations. In December 1988, Gorbachev had delivered what he called a “watershed” address at the United Nations, announcing that he planned unilaterally to reduce Soviet military forces by 500,000, cut conventional armaments….

On January 5, 1968, Alexander Dubček came to power in Communist Czechoslovakia, and began a series of reforms, later called the "Prague Spring." His new policies centered around the idea that Communism could be more liberal and responsive to the people, and achieved by increasing freedom of the press, emphasizing consumer goods, and the suggesting a multi-party government instead of a….

Following a secret telephone conversation with Stanislaw Kania (first party secretary of the Communist Party in Poland [PZPR]), Leonid Brezhnev (first party secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [CPSU]) sent telegrams about their discussion to Soviet ambassadors throughout the region. According to these notes from a September 1981 meeting of the Central Committee of the CPSU,….